Trend #007 - Creator Accelerators: A $1bn fund to fund creators? 😲

The boom, bust and rebirth of creator accelerators.

Author

Hazel Lim
February 24, 2023

Hey,

Every other Friday, I will send you a trend alert to make you the smartest person in the room about all things startup.

Today, we are going to break down the hype about creator accelerators.

What you will learn:

  • Two critical components of an accelerator program

  • Who raised $1bn to dish out cash to creators

  • Who gave away 1 month's business revenue to fellow entrepreneurs as a grant (and why)

  • YouTube is giving away 45% of its ad revenue to creators

  • 4 ways to profit from this trend

  • How the Creator trend died... and how it will come back to life.

Let's dive straight in 👇

📣 Community Shout Outs

Will - Will reached out following our No-Code + ChatGPT = New Powercouple issue because that's exactly what he is building! Check out his AI Office Bot built on Bubble and powered by OpenAI

Victor - He is a serial builder who teaches people how to create micro start-ups in a month. I'm sold. 🙌

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Let's get back to today's topic 👇

🔎 What are Creator Accelerators?

There are two essential parts to an accelerator program - the knowledge, and the funding. So Creator Accelerators are programs designed to help individuals build their creator businesses - one where they make a living creating original digital content whether on social platforms (TikTok) or owned media (newsletters).

👀 Examples of Accelerators?

Coveted accelerators are usually led by social media platforms or well-known influencers.

1️⃣ Platform-led programs

Almost every social media platform created its own creator program between 2020-2022. Creators love these programs because they GET PAID for their efforts directly from the platform, without having to worry about looking for sponsors or brand deals.

Here are the programs that are still running at time of writing:

Linkedin - 6-week LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program ($25m fund for creators in US, India, Brazil, UK)TikTok - Creativity Program (This is TikTok's second program, currently in beta, following the success of its first $1bn Creator Fund)YouTube - Partner Program (Shorts creators can now monetise their videos)Amazon - Creator University for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube influencers

2️⃣ Influencer-led programs

The reverse is true - YOU PAY to join these programs. But you get the benefit of "picking the brains" of successful creators.

👁 How do accelerators make money?

Program Fee - Nas Academy charges $600/month for a 6-month program. Subscription - Modern Mastery charges $27/month for its evergreen program.Revenue Share - YouTube Partner Program shares up to 45% of ad revenue to its accelerator fund (and in turn, to its creators)

🔥 Opportunities 

1️⃣ Create a program by partnering with an influencer. For every Mr Beast out there, there are plenty of Instagram, TikTok and YouTube influencers who are too busy with their content schedule to consider monetising their knowledge in a different way. Virgil Brewster ran a 7-figure course business doing something similar for course creators.

2️⃣ Have a course? Consider re-branding it as an accelerator. Depending on where you are, even the phrase "I am creating a course" might earn you some eye-rolls. If what you teach can help people gain an aspirational status, then running an accelerator is something you could consider (E.g. The Student Creator Accelerator, The Millionaire Copywriter Accelerator etc)

3️⃣ Run a Creator peer community - TheLeap is a newsletter and community, and Alex's Creators' Utopia Discord group is on fire. Both are by-application-only and are free at present as they race to build their initial user base.

4️⃣ Funding creators - You'd need some funding for this one. But we can't conclude an issue about accelerators without talking about money. Here are some examples:

Creative Juice - A $50 million fund to underwrite creator businesses. As a creator, you'd get an upfront cash payout in exchange for a percentage of future revenue.

Spotter - A Softbank-funded equivalent with a whooping $1bn war chest.

Can't find the $millions needed to fund creators in your accelerator program? You can do what Goutham did and distribute some of your business revenue as a grant instead.

His business (Framewall.io), is partly about encouraging people to be altruistic (leave a good review to help the business you purchased from), and this is his way of practising what he preaches.

💀 Risks  

The Creator industry has gone full circle.

The creator economy boom-bust timeline 👇

2019-2020 - The start of the Creator Economy boom. Social media platforms launched their creator programs.2021 - VC money poured into it, leading to this comment from Turner.

2022 - The year of Creators.2023 - Tech layoffs. Funding for most platform-led accelerators dried off.

The optimists among us will say that this has created a new gap in the market. And they maaay be right. Some big-name influencers e.g. Nas Yassin (Nas Daily) are noticing and are coming in to plug the gap. As you can see, he is advertising heavily at the start of 2023.

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Until the next one,

Hazel

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